


Morphine

by DaisySense



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes Remembers, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-10-06
Packaged: 2019-07-18 04:40:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16110992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaisySense/pseuds/DaisySense
Summary: Reader is a enhanced human who acts as a living pain reliever. This is especially helpful for people like Steve, as regular pain killers do not work the same on him. This also applies to other super soldiers.But why does the reader seem to cause more pain than she is taking away?





	1. Chapter 1

 It was a late Saturday night as you rushed through the hallways of the compound towards the med bay. Friday paged you and only offered a vague “We are in need of your skills, ma’m” as an explanation for calling you in when no active missions were being conducted.

 Surprisingly, your usual patient Captain Rogers was not on a gurney but instead fighting to hold someone down.

“Buck, you gotta stay still so they can put in the IV! You lost a lotta blood” yelled Steve as he struggled to keep him on the table. He wasn't winning. The man with the long brown hair was fighting back, and for a second you were glad he was injured. It was a scary to think of the damage he could inflict if he managed to ruffle up the Captain looking like death.

 Then, you noticed the metal arm. Last you had heard, Sergeant Barnes was not cleared for active duty. What was he doing here? No time to ask questions, you looked for a place to lay your hand. There were only a few parts of his torso not covered in blood. You hoped all of blood wasn't his. If it was, you weren't sure how he was alive. It was difficult to find an opening between the nurses, doctors, and the two super soldiers who were still scuffling. You finally slipped to the side of the pair and laid a hand on Sergeant Barnes’ non-metal shoulder. He flinched but you held on tight. You felt his muscles begin to relax. He finally seemed to notice you and turned to look with wide eyes.

“What are you doing to me?” At least his shock seems to still him enough for the nurses to insert the line.

“Just relax, I'm taking away your pain. That's it.”

“No drugs?”

“No drugs.” You affirmed. Steve felt comfortable enough to move from holding his upper arms to keeping one hand on his metal shoulder.

“Yup, Buck. I told you no drugs. She's a walking miracle. Don't know how I got hurt before her.” At his point, Steve was trying to distract him from the doctors having to cut open part of his abdomen to find the bleeding artery.

“I don't know if I'd say miracle, but thank you for the flattery.” You tried to keep your tone light as you felt the amount of pain you were blocking from Barnes. Between it and the adrenaline, it was taking longer than usual to knock even someone of his abilities out. You looked to see he was blinking slower but his eyes kept flitting around in a panic.

“Don't worry if you start to feel tired. That's just the adrenaline wearing off now that your pain is gone.” You said as you moved your hand down to his wrist to check his heartbeat. It was inhumanly fast, and if he was anything like Steve it should have been as slow as an Olympic athlete’s.

“No, no.” He said as his eyes started to droop. You could tell his body was starting to win over his mind. “You look familiar.” The slightest crease in his brows showed how hard he was trying to place you.

“You may have seen me around the clinic or the compound.” He only gave a hum as his eyes fell closed. You and Steve tried to keep your panic down as the doctors worked. Finally, one of the doctors announced he had cauterized the offending artery. Steve let a sigh of relief and swept his hands down his face. They still had to patch and sew him up, but he would be ok. You stood in silence for a few minutes as you waited, keeping any pain at bay the entire time.

You thought back to your first major test after the triskelion fell. Captain Rodgers was in a coma for several days, but afterwards you had to check in every few hours to remove any pain he felt. He insisted he was fine, but you felt his pain. He wasn't fine. He definitely wasn't fine after finding out his dead best friend was alive, but you couldn't fix mental anguish. You were only glad you could help him now.

The doctors had finished up and some monitors were being attached to Sergeant Barnes to monitor him as he slept. At this point, you knew enough to monitor him for any complications so the other nurses and techs were free to leave. The silence dragged on, as the room emptied out. Then you remembered your initial question when you arrived to the chaotic scene.

“I thought Sergeant Barnes wasn't cleared for active duty.”

“He's not.”

“Then why does he have three gunshot wounds?!?”, you yell-whisper.

“You've seen the protests now that he has returned to the US? We were gonna go see the pictures when some maniac shot him with an assault rifle.”

Your mind was blank, and all you could say was “Oh my God.”

“It's my fault, I was so caught up in nostalgia I didn't even notice the guy.” Steve’s eyes were glossy with unshed tears at this point.

“Steve, you know the only persons fault it was is the shooters. No one could have expected a random civilian attack like that!” Steve only shrugged and looked down at his hands. He was probably the most stubborn person you knew. You knew he felt guilty from what had happened.

“Hey, the important thing is that's he is here and he is safe? Ok?” Steve only nodded in response.

“Could you grab me a chair?” He didn't bother to respond, only to drag a chair over. “Normally I'd just come back and check pain levels in a few hours, but I know you're going to be here all night. I'll stay here to make sure he isn't in pain.” Steve finally looked up and smiled softly at that.

“Thank you.” He paused. “Sorry about earlier. Buck started to have a panic attack as soon as we entered medical. Normally, he has to psych himself up to even come here. We had planned on decorating an area more like Wakanda’s facilities but no one thought he would get injured so soon…” he trailed off. The only response you could think of was to give him a tight smile.

“It’s fine. I’m glad to help.” You both sit in silence for several hours. You can’t help but to let out a yawn. Steve offers to go get both of you coffee, and you accept. He knows you’ll look after his friend.

You take the time to look down at Barnes. You still don’t know him enough to call him by his first name or even his nickname. He still looks rough. His normally tan skin is pale, and the skin around his eyes looks bruised. If you weren’t feeling his pulse at the moment, you might think he looked dead. The peaceful look of a corpse in a casket. No, you needed to keep your mind off those thoughts. You had seen plenty of corpses during your life, and this wasn’t one of them. You were able to help him. Luckily, Steve came back with coffee and saved you from your own spiraling thoughts.

The routine of coffee between several hours of tense waiting continues. You spot three empty coffee cups pairs with Steve on his way to get a fourth.

Suddenly, Sergeant Barnes’ hand tenses. That was odd, he hadn’t felt like he was about to awaken. The next few moments went by so quickly, you weren’t even sure if there was a gap in time between them. You were sitting in the chair, holding his hand to keep away his pain. The next second, Barnes had leapt off the bed and had you pinned to the hospital floor with his vibranium hand.

“What are you doing here?”, he snarled. He’s holding onto your throat so tightly, you can’t reply. The door bursts open and Steve rushes in. He has Barnes in a armlock within seconds as he wrestles him away from you.

“Bucky, what are you doing?”

“Steve, she’s Hydra. What is she doing here?”, he growls as he continues to wrestle with Steve. You have managed to scramble over to the corner but now feel paralyzed. Barnes thinks you are Hydra? Steve looks at you and jerks his head towards the door. You know what he meant, and run out of the room.

You sit at the nurses station breathing heavily. Armed guards rush past you. Some of the doctors must have alerted someone to the struggle. You simply sit in a daze as some of the other nurses fuss over you. Tears start to flow as the panic sets in. You could never be with that evil organization. Why did Barnes think you were with them? You couldn’t be kicked out of the compound, where would you go? You weren’t even technically qualified to be a nurse. It wasn’t safe for an enhanced individual to be in the world with no survival skills. Why did he accuse you of being Hydra? Why did he think you were Hydra?!?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first fan fiction in a very, very, very long time so I’m really curious to hear what you think!


	2. Chapter 2

After 30 or so minutes, Steve finally comes back. The commotion had died down, and the other nurses had finally finished fussing over you.

“Is he ok? Did the doctors check his stitches?”, you ask.

“Yeah, a few of the external opened, but they don’t think any inside did.” Steve plops down on a chair beside you. “They had to tranq him.” You could feel the guilt radiating off him.

“I’m so sorry Steve. I know he must hate to be put under.” You personally hated the feeling of being sedated. You couldn’t control what happened while you were under. It meant that you were completely in the trust of others. Others, who might not be able to be trusted. You shuddered just thinking about it. You doubted Sergeant Barnes had much faith in others after what he had been through.

“What happened?”, Steve asks and sounds slightly accusatory. You can’t blame him, you would be suspicious of such a strong reaction as well.

“I swear I don’t know. I was just sitting there, and the next second I was on the ground.” You shook your head. It had all happened so fast.

“He had been doing so well. I don’t know if it was the stress of last night-” He rubs his eyes with the palms of his hands.

“How long will the tranquilizer last?”

“The doctors said a few hours, but they aren’t sure. It was tested on me. Hell, they don’t even know if it was safe to use on him.” Steve’s eyes are getting watery again.

“Hey, if there was anything last night showed me, he has just a strong of a metabolism and healing factor as you do.”, you pause. “I’m just worried when he wakes up he won’t let me in there again.”

“Well, you aren’t waltzing in there; that’s for sure.” Steve chuckles darkly. The old Bucky would have loved to have a dame come waltzing into his room. 

“We’ve got to figure something out. Have you checked to see how far along they are on synthesizing a pain reliever?”, you ask.

“Last I heard, they’re taking mine as a base but they aren’t even at the testing phase. Didn’t think we would need it for several more months. We don’t have all the files on what they gave him back in ‘43.” You both sit in silence for a few minutes.

“Well,”, you start off slowly, “maybe we are looking for a solution in the wrong area. It would be easier to just get Sergeant Barnes to let me in every few hours right?”

“As much as I hate to say it, no. We aren’t endangering your life.”

“I wasn’t suggesting that! Just maybe you could talk to him, convince him. You know I’m not Hydra, right Steve?”, you can’t help but feel a little desperate at this point. You hated seeing people in pain but you also hated having such a serious accusation thrown at you.

“Can you think of any reason he might think you’re Hydra?” Steve doesn’t answer your plea for reassurance. You just wanted to scream. You could never be a part of something like that. Then you remember that all the agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. thought that same thing.

“Maybe I just look like someone he met in Hydra?”

“Perhaps.”

“Steve, you’ve read my file right?”

“Yeah, a few years ago. If there was anything of note it would have been flagged.”

“I’m going to go check on him while he’s still out if that’s ok.” You wring your hands. You wish that you had worked on developing your powers more. They hadn’t been needed since they had synthesized a pain reliever for Steve. You hadn’t even thought that someone like Bucky would need you. You hadn’t wanted to use them again.

“That’s fine. I’m going to go talk to Bruce and Helen, see if there’s a way to speed things up.”

Once the tranquilizer wore off, there would be a limited window of time where your powers would work. Right now they only worked for a few hours at most. From what you experienced earlier, it seemed like you couldn’t predict when Sergeant Barnes would wake. That was going to be your biggest issue.

 

——-

 

Steve travels to the research area of the compound. Tony had made sure to separate the labs from all other areas in case something exploded. He walks past the R&D department and immediately sees Bruce through the glass windows. He is looking at some slides through a microscope. Steve knocks upon entering, but Bruce doesn’t respond.

“Hey, Bruce. Is Helen here as well?” Bruce jerks up quickly and spins around. He nearly knocks over a set of glass tubes while doing so.

“Oh! Steve. No, she’s in South Korea right now.”

“I-“

“I heard what happened. I know you’re probably here to ask how the synthesizing is coming along.”

“Well, how is it coming along?”, Steve asks with only a slight bit of sarcasm. His frayed nerves were raveling away his patience.

“It’s not going great. We still need a few more weeks to run simulations for it to be safely administered.”

“Is there anything else you can think of?”, Steve pleads. This was not the answer he was hoping for.

“Well, we could probably put Sergeant Barnes in cryo until he heals which shouldn’t take more than a week.” Bruce takes his glasses and starts cleaning them with a cloth.

“No, we aren’t doing that. I was against it the first time. Why can’t we just use my pain meds again?” Steve respects Bruce, but it was clear what he and Tony did was out of Steve’s league. It was hard to imagine that with the technology they had, a medicine couldn’t be developed faster.

“Well, your pain medicine fully attaches itself to the pain receptors in your brain. If a normal human tried it, its likely it would overwhelm the respiratory area of the brain. “ Bruce points to an area on his head. “This will cause the lungs to stop receiving signals to breath. Once that happens, the person can be put on a ventilator until it leaves their system. The issue is that I don’t know that a normal metabolism would ever be able to remove this medicine off the receptors.”

“And we don’t know where Bucky falls on that scale.”

“Exactly. Looking at the files Natasha leaked, it seems that Hydra would just operate on Bucky while in cryo…” Bruce pauses. “Or while he was awake.”

“They never developed anything?”

“Oh, they tested all sorts of things on him. I’m not even sure what most of them were. I didn’t read anything about pain relief.” Bruce is still cleaning his glasses, it must be a nervous tick. “Well, there was one file that was slightly confusing. They somehow were able to operate on his arm while he was awake with some sort of nerve block, but it didn’t say how.”

“I’m going to go down to archives to look at a few things. Thanks!” Steve says over his shoulder as he jogs out of the lab.

“You’re welcome!” Bruce responds, but Steve is already out the door and down the hallway. Bruce is left mumbling about a lack of respect for the sciences, as he sees Steve race down the hallway.

 

——-

 

You head back over to Mr. Barnes’ room. There is no evidence of the scuffle except for several armed guards now posted outside the door. You couldn’t help but laugh sardonically to yourself. They wouldn’t slow him down much, even injured.

He had slightly more color to him than when you last observed, but he was still pale. His eyelashes didn’t even flutter against his skin. He was out cold. You grabbed part of his right arm. It was crowded with a IV drip, oxygen monitor and a blood pressure cuff as putting any of those on a metal arm would be useless. He wasn’t in any pain at least. The tranq they gave him must have been strong, because you couldn’t feel any incoming nerve response to the brain. You still did what you could, and hoped it would be enough for a few hours.

“I’m sorry about what happened. I hope you’re having sweet dreams.” You knew he couldn’t hear you, but it at least made you feel better to talk to him.

You yawned. This was the most you had used your powers in several years, and you were severely out of practice. It didn’t help you had only gotten a few hours of sleep before you were called in. You looked back towards him one last time before you headed back to your room to take a short nap.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope the switching perspectives are clear. As always, I would love to hear from you regarding theories, critiques, and feedback of all kinds! I really appreciate the kudos. It makes my heart flutter each time I receive an email!


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